


Mutatink

by Kayuri



Series: Mutatink [1]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Body Horror, Good Guy Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Henry-centric, Ink Henry Stein, Joey Drew being a Jerk, Mentioned Joey Drew, Mute Boris (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Tired Henry Stein, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 15:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19726459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayuri/pseuds/Kayuri
Summary: The ink inside the studio was not normal. Every step costs ones humanity, the longer you trudge through it.It's been 414 loops. He remembered every single one. This loop will be the last one. For better or worse





	Mutatink

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is something I originally uploaded on Tumblr, for Halfusek's Ink Demonth. The topic was Monster, and in the end it developed into this. A fledgling AU called Mutatink (how original), where the ink ends up mutating Henry even across the loops.

Henry wasn’t sure when it had started. But nowadays the ink whispered whenever he got near, not just when he died and ended up in the puddles. It was annoying and made him loose his temper more often. Another thing were the stains. They didn’t go away anymore, seemingly persistent even through the loop. Whenever he set foot in this cursed studio again, the splotches appeared again, the only time where they weren’t on his skin when he was in Joey’s apartment. A slightly feral growl builds up in his throat at the though of his former companion. A companion that trapped him in this… this Hell. To be chased by his own creation until he died, and even then the reprieve of death wasn’t enough anymore. The puddles spat him out when he dwelled inside them for too long.

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Henry heaved and spat out thick globs of ink mixed with vomit. Boris hovered behind him, worry on the canine face. This time they hadn’t even left the safe house yet, since Henry kept getting sick. The splotches had spread further, both arms had black stains all over. One thing that concerned Henry and Boris even more: Henry continued loosing weight even when he practically ate his own weight in bacon soup. The slight paunch he had gained before the studio was gone and his ribs started showing slightly a week ago. He heaved again, vomiting up something solid but quite inky. Neither he nor Boris could really identify it, but it melted away in the ink clogging up the toilet in a matter of seconds. Henry’s bad feeling increased a sevenfold. He needed to get out of these loops.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Both Henry and Boris had decided to leave the safe house the next day, agreeing in the fact that it would be better to do so while Henry still had strength in his limbs. Boris refused to leave his side the entire time once they arrived in Heavenly Toys, not even leaving when Alice appeared. He refused to cower, instead he held Henry up. It was a new development, but not exactly one Henry opposed. He felt horrible and vomited up more ink lately. By now he didn’t even know where it came from anymore.

—————————————————————————————————————————

His whole right hand was covered in ink. Not just stains. Actual ink. And it didn’t come off anymore. It was causing him endless frustration and made Boris worry even more. The Wolf-toon followed him everywhere and showed unseen potential for aggression, chasing away the malformed butcher gang members and searchers alike with loud growls and a wave of his bone. The only ones he cowered from were Bendy (and Henry used that name very loosely for the Ink Demon), and Norman. Henry didn’t begrudge him for that. These two were absolute monsters, both in power and appearance. In one loop Henry had made a list about which inky abomination ranked where. Bendy was on the top, followed by Norman, then Sammy and Alice for place three and four respectively. His sole reason for ranking Sammy higher than Alice was the fact that Sammy escaped death twice, and almost succeeded with murdering him thrice. It had been been a nice idea and he spent some thought on it, in a detached sort. 

—————————————————————————————————————————

Norman stopped attacking him with no reason when he caught sight of him. It was strange, but the Projectionist may have been more lucid this loop. He still screamed and wailed nerve-wrackingly, but he lurked only in the corners of Henry’s sight. Not even Boris saw him really. The only thing that alerted them to his presence was the slight clinking he produced while walking, and the bobbing of his projector. Once the hearts were collected and they got out of the ink, Boris pulled Henry towards the small room near the elevator, and looked him over, going so far to take Henry’s shirt off. What they saw was horrifying. His ribs were not longer slightly showing, but quite prominent, and the inky splotches were claiming his entire torso, only a few patches of normal skin showing. This was also the first time Henry got a good look at his inky arm. It was thinner than he remembered, but still five fingered. It also ached something fierce. When Henry looked up he locked gazes with Boris, whose pie-cut eyes were wavering in worry. He grunts, and proceeds to hug the wolf with one arm. The cartoon tenses for a second, then leans into the touch, body soon shaking with mute sobs. Henry was dying, the ink had laid it’s claim.

—————————————————————————————————————————

This time they had refused to listen to Alice, and Henry led Boris down the stairs. He refused to fight the cartoon who had stood up for him so fiercely, living up to his species‘ name. They were able to stay together, eventually arriving at the place where Henry found the Lost Ones. By now Henry looked even worse, his face pale and legs trembling. They had lost muscle mass, like everything else on his body, and he looked like one of the people he rescued from the KZ’s in Germany back during the war. Boris was holding him up full time by now because the wolf didn’t trust his friend to be able to stand. They found allies in the Lost Ones, who feared and hated the Angel. Everyone opposing her was welcome amongst them. They quickly noticed that something was wrong with Henry, and pulled one of the couches from the lobby inside so he could rest. When he could sleep, his dreams were filled with heavy breathing, pain and ink. He couldn’t remember the dreams once he woke up.

—————————————————————————————————————————

This loop was so much longer than the ones he had lived through before. Whatever sickness he had gotten had prolonged his stay in the studio for months. Progress was slow, injuries weren’t healing properly anymore. One Striker had hit him in the leg recently, twisting it inwards. The following punch had cost him his foot. The appendage was looking more like a club foot, and every step was agony. Then again, that wasn’t anything new. Nowadays his entire existence was a pain filled one, and each death made it worse, speeding it up. The last death was by the aforementioned Striker, and his entire damaged leg was coated in ink now. His foot (more a an inky shape vaguely resembling a foot) clung to the ground whenever he limped anywhere, the ink preventing a proper healing. Henry walked slightly hunched over now, his relatively healthy leg bent to lift some pressure from his damaged one. Boris still worries, and looked over his friend in worry. They needed to get out. The ink didn’t do any good.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Bendy had made an appearance when they crawled through the vents after almost a week of bed rest. When he caught sight of Henry he appeared surprised, unlike in the former loops. His grin trembled more as he ran his finger over the vent gate. It was disconcerting. Just how much had he changed already? How long was he in this cursed place, succumbing to the ink? The following task of opening the haunted house was slow, Henry’s affliction slowing them down. It was during this period that Henry’s other hand started changing. One day he had all five fingers when he went to sleep, but when he woke up a cartoonish glove was in place. Some parts were white, others getting the muted sepia of the studio. His resulting hoarse scream woke up Boris and Norman alike, the latter jerking up from his rest in the maintenance area with a static shriek that ended with them hiding in the miracle station and Norman coming after then despite it. Bendy’s intervention was a welcome one as always. It was sad that Norman had to die, but the Projectionist had been enraged and was by no means lucid. It was for the better if he could die. Even the puddles were friendlier than this.

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Somehow Alice still managed to organize a fight with a Boris, albeit one of the older ones. It hurt Henry even more to kill that one. He collapsed to the ground the second Alice was struck from behind, the last thing he saw being Boris face flooded with panic. When he woke up, it was in the safe house Allison and Tom resided in. Boris was sitting next to him, hugging him the second he noticed that Henry was awake. Tom distrusted Henry even more because of his appearance now. His near death due to a Brute Boris had caused his change to continue further. His left elbow and half of his face were the only things still looking like him, and even that was disappearing fast. His shirt was torn up where the human-ish arm was, just like the right leg of his trousers. Both were showcasing just how inhuman Henry was now. His head hurt, especially the right side. The ink had taken that one over, slowly claiming his face. When the Ink Demon came, he and Boris stumbled out of the hideout and into the Cave. There, in an area with actual walls, he discovered messages that didn’t sit well with him. „ _CHANGE IS COMING_ “ and „ _MONSTROUS LIKE THE REST_ “ were proclaimed there. When he raised up the seeing tool Boris got from Allison, the message „ _ONLY BODY, NOT THE MIND!_ “ showed up. These were new, and it made Henry’s stomach churn. If he still had one, that was. 

—————————————————————————————————————————

The fight with Sammy and his congregation was horrible. Not just due to Henry’s condition, but also because this was a moment Henry’s body decided to manifest the power of inky webs. When the enemies suddenly died en Masse and inky webs danced on the wall, everyone got tense, fearing that the demon may arrive. Instead it was Henry who controlled them, and giant sobs shook his body as he collapsed to the ground, covering his ever changing face. The texture of a trembling grin greeted him, alongside the sensation of a horn and ink crawling over his head.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Henry still fell down to the administration area. This was when he got a proper look at his face in the glass of the doors. He jerked back when he managed it. He looked like the demon. His loud breaths sounded like the demon. The only thing not right was his height and that his second horn was missing. That, and that he was still wearing clothes. His repair work of the pipes was done fast, the Butcher gang avoiding him as his webs danced on the wall. Inside the vault, he was joined by the others, Boris quickly running up to him. A sliver of fear was on his friends face, quickly disappearing when Henry gently runs his trembling right hand over his head. Their quest to the giant ink machine ended up with him limping through the ink. Boris was being held back by Allison and Tom, to prevent the loyal wolf of disappearing back to the ink. The usually mute canid dissolved into agonizing howls when they did that. Henry was going to die! Why couldn’t they understand that?

—————————————————————————————————————————

The fight with Bendy progressed as always, up until the point when the fourth column was shattered. After Henry awoke from the blackness, he noticed, to his dismay, that Bendy was nowhere in sight, but that he himself looked fully like him, clothes gone and crooked bowtie in place. The Reel was still there though, and this had to end. But when he put the reel in, it felt like he was torn in two. Then he stared in his own face ( _hishumanfacehowlonghasitbeenthathelookedliketha_ t) and snarled. His chest felt empty, only agony there. When he reached out to touch his human self, he howled in pain. The End flashed on the screen, and he was… disintegrating. A gurgling, whistle like laugh escapes him when everything turns black. So that was it all along? He had chased himself? Killed himself? Oh what an irony. A man’s greatest demon was indeed he himself. His laugh devolves into hysterical, manic laughter that hurt, ( _ithurtithurtithurt_ ) when he suddenly heard his own voice.

„ _Alright Joey, I’m here. Let’s see if I can find what you wanted me to see_.“

A mind consuming rage overwhelmed him as he lost himself further in the ink.


End file.
